I worked on The Myth Makers in 1965. Now, at that time, nobody had any idea at all that
it was going to become a sort of cult program. It was just a very good children's show.
And I was asked if I would do it, and I thought, well, yes, this should be quite fun. I was
just about to get married, so I had a lot of other things on my mind, but I could just
fit it in. And I thought, you know, that would be a nice thing to do. I was quite disappointed,
though, when I got the script, because I discovered there weren't any Daleks in it, because it
was set in Troy, the fall of Troy. But I played Cassandra, which was quite fun, because I
went around kind of like spreading doom and disaster all the time. And so it was fun to
do, and I enjoyed it, but I kind of forgot about it pretty quickly afterwards. And it's
kind of come back to bite me many years later, partly, I think, because it got lost. I mean,
I think that's why everyone's so kind of like keen to remember that one, because they can't
have it. Now, William Hartnell, people have asked me about William Hartnell. He was a
bit grumpy, but I mean, everybody kind of like accepted that he was the star of the
show, and if he wanted to be a bit grumpy, he could be. He had a favourite armchair in
the rehearsal room, and we were all warned, we were all warned before we embarked on rehearsing
that we mustn't sit on it. It was the most tatty, scruffy, horrible-looking armchair,
and you can't actually imagine anybody wanting to sit on it anyway, but it was William Hartnell's
chair, and it had to be left strictly alone. What did I remember most? I remember mostly
about it was my costume, which was held on the shoulders with two pins, and the costume
designer said she'd researched it very carefully, and apparently priestesses, because of course
Cassandra was a high priestess, had poison on the ends of the pins that held up the dress,
which was to stop people clapping them on the shoulders in an over-friendly and familiar
manner, because if they did that, they'd get poisoned and they'd die, which was rather
off-putting really. So I remember that. I remember that as sort of wondering if it was
a historical fact, but being quite interested by it. I remember being, at one point being
dragged off by some guards down some steps, and I gave them a really hefty push. They
were quite big, but they must have been unbalanced or something, and they were wearing kind of
bulky and difficult armour, because I knocked them over, which I don't think I was supposed
to do. In fact, I think we had to reshoot that bit. Apparently the Radio Times forgot
to put my name in the credits. Now, I don't remember that at all. I didn't ask for my
name to be taken off the credits, and if I'd known my name wasn't on the credits at the
time, I'd have been pretty miffed, I can tell you, because I certainly wasn't ashamed of
being Cassandra in The Myth Makers. I was very proud to be in Doctor Who.
The Myth Makers was the third Doctor Who story of season three, but was actually the first
story to be filmed in the third production block. The first two stories of the season,
Galaxy 4 and Mission to the Unknown, were filmed several months earlier at the end of
the second production block. During the interval between recording blocks, there had been many
changes behind the scenes at the Doctor Who production office. John Wiles had fully taken
over from Verity Lambert as producer, and Donald Tosh was now in the role of story editor,
which he had inherited from Dennis Spooner. The new production team were keen to make
their mark on the show, and one major change was the decision to write out the character
of Vicky. Actress Maureen O'Brien was known to have been unhappy in her role, but was
shocked to find her contract was not being renewed after these first four episodes.
Originally intended to be a replacement for Vicky, the character of Katerina was created,
played by actress Adrienne Hill. However, it soon became clear that the character of
a Trojan handmaiden had very limited potential, so Katerina was only written for five episodes
before her character was killed off. In fact, Katerina's death scene in The Dalek's Master
Plan was the first scene that Adrienne Hill filmed. The Mythmakers was writer Donald Cotton's
first credit on Doctor Who. He was initially reluctant to work on the series, but agreed
on the condition that he could choose his own subject matter. Cotton brought on board
composer Humphrey Searle for the incidental music, and suggested actor Max Adrienne for
the role of King Priam, both of whom he had worked with before. Some members of the cast
had notable links with the other Doctor Who productions. Barry Ingham, who played Paris,
had played Alidon in the Peter Cushing film Doctor Who and the Daleks a few months earlier.
Veteran comic actor Francis DeWolf, who played Agamemnon, had previously appeared as Vesa
in the Keys of Marinus. Interestingly, the costume that he wore for the Mythmakers was
the same costume that he'd previously worn on the film Carry On, Cleo. Other returning
actors were Tutti Lemko as Cyclops, who had appeared in Marco Polo and The Crusade, and
Ivor Salter as Odysseus, who had been a Moor Ruck commander in the Space Museum five months
previously. William Hartnell was reportedly very unhappy during the filming of this story.
He was now the only member of the original cast remaining, and did not get on well with
the new production team. It is also believed that he felt he was being upstaged by the
presence of actors such as Max Adrienne and Francis DeWolf. To make matters worse, his
elderly aunt died, and he was unable to attend her funeral due to filming commitments. Filming
for the Mythmakers began in late August 1965 on location at French and Ponds in Surrey,
which was used for the sandy plains outside Troy. Early September saw the model shots
of the wooden horse and the city of Troy filmed at Ealing Film Studios. The episodes themselves
were recorded at Riverside Studio One between Friday the 17th of September and Friday the
8th of October 1965. Interestingly, a scene in the last episode involving Cassandra and
Katharina was filmed, but unfortunately had to be cut from the final episode in post-production
due to timing reasons. Sadly, very little material survives from the Mythmakers. A handful
of photos and a few short clips recorded on a cine camera by a fan are all that remains
of this classic story. Nevertheless, the Mythmakers remains an excellently scripted,
sharp, witty, and at times risque serial with a well-written exit for Vicky in a surprisingly
bleak ending. The TARDIS arrives on the plains of Asia Minor, not far from the besieged city
of Troy. The TARDIS crew are about to embark on an adventure where the boundaries between
history, myth, and legend become blurred. But by becoming embroiled in historical events,
the Doctor, Stephen, and Vicky are unaware that they themselves are about to become the Mythmakers.